A HISTORY OF KENT 



5 inches high, one with incised chevrons on the body, the other with 

 a small foot and outline recalling a Roman pattern. Other similar 

 remains were brought to light at different times in the village, 

 and skeletons were met with at Southbank about the year i860. 

 Fragile as they are, certain glass cups found for the most part in Kent 

 were in all probability manufactured abroad and imported into this 

 country. One pattern with constricted body and a small knob in the 

 centre of the base is exceedingly rare in England, but about thirty were 

 found on a farm at Woodnesborough at the end of the eighteenth 

 century, and used at harvest- homes and on other special occasions by 

 the farm-hands. A specimen of rich brown colour, with threads below 

 the rim, is illustrated by Akerman.' Some idea of the distribution of 

 such cups may be derived from their occurrence so far apart as at 

 Herpes (Charente) and Envermeu (Normandy) in France, Selzen in 

 Rhenish Hesse, and Oberflacht in Suabia, but the lobed vessels are also 

 widely dispersed, and it is at present impossible to determine their place 

 or places of manufacture. 



Before the Society of Antiquaries in 1894 Mr. Geo. Payne drew 

 attention to the peculiar character of some relics of the Saxon period in 

 the Maidstone Museum, which were presented by Mr. W. W. Cobb, 

 and apparently came from Buttsole.' Bronze ornaments for the dress 

 or belt were partly gilt and take the form of fish and birds or are 

 purely geometrical," with sunk panels filled with engraved linear 

 patterns or plaits in relief. There were the bronze mounts of one 

 (or two) buckets, and a key with handle swelling in the centre (see fig. 7), 

 while iron arrowheads, which are but seldom met with at this period, 

 recall those from the Jutish cemetery on Chessell Down, Isle of Wight. 

 Other iron objects were three swords much thinner, shorter and 

 narrower than usual, as many shield-bosses, and other details ; and it is 

 supposed that all came from the graves of three warriors whose nation- 

 ality it is difficult to determine. 



A considerable number of relics were obtained in 1771 from graves 

 disclosed in a sand-pit at Ash, on the high road from Sandwich to 

 Canterbury. The graves contained coffins, and were distinct from 

 each other, lying 4 feet deep, generally with the head at the west end. 

 The majority were described and illustrated by Boys,'' to whose zeal and 

 generosity Douglas refers in complimentary terms.° The list com- 

 prises jewelled brooches of the circular and square-headed types, 

 portions of a pair of scales with one leaden and seven bronze weights, 

 two of the latter being coins of Faustina with sundry dots added : 

 a crystal sphere, amethyst beads, girdle-plates, bucket with bronze 



' Pagan Saxondom, pi. xvii. fig. i ; Nen. Brit. pi. xvii. fig. 6, p. 71. 



2 The locality is given as Dover in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Land. xv. 180, but without conviction. 



3 A fragment very similar to that on the left of fig. 6 is illustrated in Gen. Pitt-Rivers' Excavations 

 in Cranborne Chase, vol. iv. pi. 258, fig. 15, and the resemblance noted p. 89. The locality is there given 

 as Buttsole, near Eastry (see above, p. 351). 



* History of Sandwich, part ii. (1792), p. 868 (3 plates) ; most of the objects are in the British and 

 Canterbury Museums; see also Proc. Soc. Ant. ist ser. iv. 334. 



^ Nen. Brit. p. 26, note » ; for illustrations, see pi. vii. figs. I, 3 ; pi. xii. and pi. xxiii. figs. 3, 5. 



